e; and seek for some more satisfactory adjustment of
it. At present its status is very indefinite. The church is by no means at
one concerning it. The pulpit too often evades it. Private Christians
waver between the results of independent thought and of early education,
undecided whether to approve or condemn; while extremists take advantage
of this hesitation to lay down the sternest dogmas, and to thunder
denunciations at every head that will not bow to their _ipse dixit_. The
questions at issue are not to be dismissed with a sneer at fanaticism and
over-scrupulousness on the one hand, and with a protest against
unwarrantable liberality on the other. The whole subject must be
reexamined with reference to fundamental gospel principles by both
parties, in a spirit of Christian moderation, and with the desire of
ascertaining not only what is _safe_, but what is _right_.

To prosecute thoroughly such an examination within the limits assigned me,
is, of course, impossible. I can only deal with a few of the great
principles underlying the case, and urge their application to a single
practical question which has arisen in the experience of our own, and it
may be, of other Christian associations.

The idea of _development_, which is perhaps the fundamental one of
Christianity, has been to a very great extent swallowed up in the idea of
_safety_. It is not an uncommon error to regard Christianity almost
exclusively in a defensive aspect; the Christian merely as a _safe_ man,
protected by Divine safe-guards from temptation, rescued by Divine mercy
from the terrors of death and judgment. Correspondingly with this mistake,
the tendency has grown to strengthen the defenses of character, rather
than to foster its growth. To keep it from temptation, rather than to
teach it to overcome temptation. To teach it its danger from the world,
rather than its duty to the world. Consequently we have heard more about
keeping unspotted from the world, than of going into _all_ the world, and
preaching the gospel to every creature. More about coming out and being
separate, than of knowing the truth which shall make free. More of
separating wheat from tares, than of leavening lumps.

The false instinct of self-preservation, which sent the Romanist into
cloisters and convents, and tore him from the sweet sanctities of domestic
life, has perpetuated itself more than some of us think in Protestant
thought and church legislation. And in nothing has t